A sign with the advice “Keep calm and carry on” hangs on the wall behind Debra Hewson, CEO of Odlum Brown Ltd., as she explains the governing philosophy that allowed her to steer the Vancouver wealth management company through the financial crisis of 2008 and towards the future.
“You get through everything,” Hewson said. “You may not get through it the way you’d like to, but everything, you get through. At some point in time you’re going to come out the other side, so all you can do is look through and see what that looks like, and how you want to get there, and keep moving. And if you get side-swiped, you reset and you keep moving.”
It’s an approach entrenched in a new strategic plan Odlum Brown developed and adopted earlier this year with Hewson’s guidance, one that she hopes will ensure that what has supported the company’s growth to $10 billion under management will continue to underpin its future development.
“Relationships were strong, people trusted us, we worked through it and together with them we got through the other side,” she said of the months following October 2008. “When events around you are suggesting that you react, sometimes the hardest thing of all is just to stay the course. So having the structure around you, having the focus around you, having the people around you, who understand that long-term focus and can keep that moving forward, is really important.”
Newly remarried at 57, Hewson has made her own share of difficult decisions on the road to the C-suite.
Born in Winnipeg, she moved with her parents to North Vancouver in 1969. Graduating from high school, her experience as a summer camp counsellor in West Vancouver inspired her to become a teacher until her first job placement.
She came home after the first week and, with her parents’ encouragement, parlayed her coursework into a double major in psychology and political science.
“It was 1980, it was during the repatriation of the Constitution and there was just lots going on on the Canadian political scene,” she recalled.
Graduating from the University of British Columbia in 1981, she landed a job on the front lines of Bank of Montreal as a teller. Retail banking wasn’t her thing, she said, and she made the leap to the accounting department of Canarim, the predecessor of Canaccord (now Canaccord Genuity Group Inc.).
The stock market was full of energy, and she focused on gaining experience that led to a sales position with the institutional fixed-income division of RBC Dominion Securities.
“I was in this environment that was vibrant, and it was exciting, and it was a rush,” she said. “People came to work and they [were] actually having fun. They were enjoying it.”
Odlum Brown became a client, and in 1991 the firm hired her to launch its retail fixed-income division; in 1994 she joined its senior leadership team.
Seven years later, in 2001, she was appointed COO, and in another seven years she was facing the collapse of the global financial system as the firm’s president and CEO.
“The fear was huge because of the lack of understanding of what [was] going to happen,” she said. “Yet you’ve got 250 people who are relying on you to steer through it, so you’ve just got to sit down and take each day as it comes and deal with it. … That’s something I’ve learned how to do over my career, is to look at the big problem but also to be able to break it down into smaller pieces and deal with those pieces. It’s the only way.”
Odlum Brown’s survival and growth were satisfying, but even more so has been watching her four children embark on their careers; her oldest is an equestrian, and a son is involved in jazz.
Taking satisfaction in watching people find their place is part of the attitude she also brings to work.
“The success of the firm is going to be about the team we have now and the team going forward,” she said. “We have to be constantly thinking about having the right people in place, not only for the roles now, but the roles coming up.” •
Join us to celebrate this year’s honourees at the 2016 BC CEO Awards November 1, 2016, hosted at the Fairmont Waterfront Hotel. For tickets and event info, visit www.biv.com/ceo.
